The clock is ticking, and ICE London is only a short six days away. Emotions are high and companies worldwide await anxiously for the prestigious event that will kickstart the tradeshows agenda for the rest of the year.
Ahead of the event, Yogonet caught up with Steven Valentine, Chief Commercial Officer of Comtrade Gaming, who shared the company’s plan for the event, as well as the rest of 2024, highlighting that this represents a special year for the company as it is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
What will be the main novelties that your company will present and focus on at ICE London this year?
Comtrade Gaming is celebrating its 20th anniversary at ICE this year. During this time, we have established ourselves as one of the leading iGaming Platform providers for major operators. This year at ICE marks a new strategic initiative for us as we will be showcasing our new game division, “CG Games”.
We have provided RGS technology to many other game providers over the years, and this marks the first time we have launched our own. We will be demonstrating an initial catalog of 10 games, consisting of 8 high-end slots and 2 crash games. “Space Aviator” and “Crash Soccer”, are both multiplayer crash games that can be branded for individual operators.
What are your expectations for the expo, and what are the company’s key goals for the event?
This is the last time it will be in London for the foreseeable future. ICE attendance numbers have been growing year on year, and I expect this to be the biggest show yet. Over those years it has attracted wider audiences from Asia, then the USA, and now I expect a large contingent from Latin America.
ICE for us is about evangelizing about what we do, how our laser-like focus helps operators grow, and how that significantly impacts our clients. We are very client-focused and technology-driven rather than sales-focused, so ICE is a great opportunity to meet operators who might not have already heard of us.
How would you describe the industry’s and your client’s current demands?
At Comtrade Gaming, we have never been market-focused instead, we have always been operator-focused. The challenges operators face, are the same in whichever market you are in.
It’s always about growth and retention and how they can do things faster. As a company with well over 300 software developers, we can meet the ever-changing demands of operators seeking significant growth.
The event comes as we enter a new year for gambling. What is your assessment of how the sector developed in 2023, and what should we expect from it in 2024?
The changes within our industry, although frequent are always within the same considerations. Regulation is always changing, whether it is new markets opening or others becoming stricter, these typically bring new opportunities for operators. There has been a significant shift last year, from focus on the USA significantly decreasing to the attention switching to Latin America, Brazil in particular.
The other major changes are typically M&A driven, who is buying who. Whilst the current financial climate meant that activity decreased in this area it will still be one of the biggest forces of change in 2024. That M&A activity can potentially cause considerable headaches for an operator, especially if it’s one of your major vendors that has just been bought and no longer values your business as they did before.
As a business that has been around for 20 years, we will continue to do what we do best, providing great technology based on long-term partnerships to drive significant growth for our clients.
Comtrade Gaming's stand at a previous edition of ICE London
What other industry events does the company plan to attend this year?
We plan to attend SBC Rio and iGB Live, we will also have a large stand at SBC Lisbon, and most likely SIGMA Malta.
Towards the end of 2023, the company extended its partnerships with Superbet and migrated Spinbit. What are these customers looking for from Comtrade and how can the company help them in their operations?
We have worked with Superbet for over 5 years. We have been a big part of their growth from migrating them as a small/mid-size operator to the Tier 1 they are today. They now have complete dominance of the Romania market and are rapidly becoming one of the biggest in Poland.
We provide them with an iGaming platform that is extremely stable and gives them every tool they need to power their growth. We deliver upgrades to all our clients on 3 weekly cycles, on a no downtime basis. This ensures they are always staying one step ahead of the competition.
Spinbet is a very similar story, they have exceptional people and a real thirst for growth, and we give them the tools that enable them to deliver their business aspirations. Since migrating them in Q3 last year to our platform they have almost doubled in size.
We excel in delivering what an operator specifically wants or requests. We take a very long-term view with all our clients, and we are quite particular about who we work with.
This ensures that every client is extremely well looked after and they are not fighting to get attention. It’s a model that has been extremally successful for us but more importantly it is shown by the growth and satisfaction of our clients.